hat Mexican horse-thief and
have tied him up in your filly's stall in the barn--till the 'Frisco
deputy gets back from rounding up the others. So ye jest stay where ye
are till they've come and gone, and we're shut o' all that cattle. Are
ye mindin'?"

"All right, maw; 'taint no call o' mine, anyhow," returned Lanty,
through the half-open door.

At another time her mother might have been startled at her passive
obedience. Still more would she have been startled had she seen her
daughter's face now, behind the closed door--with her little mouth set
over her clenched teeth. And yet it was her own child, and Lanty was her
mother's real daughter; the same pioneer blood filled their veins, the
blood that had never nourished cravens or degenerates, but had given
itself to sprinkle and fertilize desert solitudes where man might
follow. Small wonder, then, that this frontier-born Lanty, whose first
infant cry had been answered by the yelp of wolf and scream of panther;
whose father's rifle had been leveled across her cradle to cover the
stealthy Indian who prowled outside, small wonder that she should feel
herself equal to these "man's doin's," and prompt to take a part. For
even in the first shock of the news of the capture she recalled the
fact that the barn was old and rotten, that only that day the filly
had kicked a board loose from behind her stall, which she, Lanty,
had lightly returned to avoid "making a fuss." If his captors had not
noticed it, or trusted only to their guards, she might make the opening
wide enough to free him!

Two hours later the guard nearest the now sleeping house, a farm hand
of the Fosters', saw his employer's daughter slip out and cautiously
approach him. A devoted slave of Lanty's, and familiar with her
impulses, he guessed her curiosity, and was not averse to satisfy it
and the sense of his own importance. To her whispers of affected,
half-terrified interest, he responded in whispers that the captive was
really in the filly's stall, securely bound by his wrists behind his
back, and his feet "hobbled" to a post. That Lanty couldn't see him, for
it was dark inside, and he was sitting with his back to the wall, as he
couldn't sleep comf'ble lyin' down. Lanty's eyes glowed, but her face
was turned aside.

"And ye ain't reckonin' his friends will come and rescue him?" said
Lanty, gazing with affected fearfulness in the darkness.

"Not much! There's two other guards down in the corral, and I'd